How do I extract sound file info from an age?

[Zaphod]

I've been looking through the forum to find some hint as to which tool to use to extract a list of the sound files (.ogg) from the .prp files in an age. I have tried PRPTool and have found that it will show me all the sound files for an entire age. That's exactly what I'm looking for....BUT....there is no way (short of exporting them one at a time to a folder and then run some sort of script) to create the list I'm after.

There must be a tool that will do this for me. Even one where I can copy and paste a list of files would be fine. Anyone have any hints as to what I should try? Some of the ages have a HUGE number of files that they reference and doing this one file at a time is going to take FOREVER!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Tweek]

Sound files are kept in the sfx folder not in PRP's.

[Zaphod]

Sound files are kept in the sfx folder not in PRP's.

I realize the .ogg files are in the sfx folder but they are all lumped in there together. Some have names that give me a clue as to what age they are used in. Others have obscure names that don't seem to relate to any particular age. There are also files that are used in more than one age. What I want to do is look in the .prp files for an age to see which of the .ogg files are used in that age. Does that make my question more clear?

[D'Lanor]

I believe Zaphod is asking for a list, not the actual files. For most files you can tell which age they belong to by their unique 4 letter prefix. However, there are also many global sounds which can be played from any age.

[Zaphod]

I believe Zaphod is asking for a list, not the actual files.

That's correct. All I'm after is a list of the files, not the files themselves.

For most files you can tell which age they belong to by their unique 4 letter prefix. However, there are also many global sounds which can be played from any age.

I can see the sound files that are used in the age by running PRPTool.exe but it won't allow me to export a list of the sound files. I'm hoping there is something else that will show me a list of these files that I can either export or do a copy and paste to put it into a text editor like notepad.

[GPNMilano]

There is no program out there. (That I know of) that gives you a list by extracting information from the age file. Your best shot is to just use the list of prefixes I gave you and go through the files in your sfx folder. That prefix will tell you to what age each sound goes. the rest are just global files used in every age in Uru.

[andylegate]

Yep......you're going to have to do it the hard way: write it down and/or listen to the ogg files.

If you've played Uru enough, you should recognize the majority of the sound files as to what Age they belong to. Or as D'Lanor pointed out, many of the unique sounds have a prefix that give it away.

Keep the following in mind:

ahny = Ahnonay
grsn = Gahreesen
grtz = Great Zero
islm = Cavern = Ae'gura
kdsh = Kadish Tolesh
nb = Bevin or Kirel
Psnl = Relto
tldn = Teledahn

you'll have some files that start with a little "p" or "x" and some not at all, just name, hehe, and they get used in many places (IE footstep regions, etc).

What do you need a list for?

[GPNMilano]

Weird. It seems that the forum ate my post. This is a list that I refereed to earlier. Zaphod, this would be your best bet for a starting point.

First, the prefix is not always four letters. Its not always four letters. Its just a prefix, sometimes its 3, other times its 4, and in one case (Tetsonot) its five. Global sounds have an "x" before the file name. like "xPod-PushButton". These are the sounds that coorelate to multiple ages.

a simple list of the prefixes:

ahny = Ahnonay
bhro = these relate to bahro related stuff that isn't sounds of the bahro. (yeesha's speeches. the poles in relto etc.)
clft = The Cleft
dln = Delin
drn = Dereno
dsnt = Descent
erca = E'rcana
gira = Duh, gira
gd01 = Kemo
grsn = Garrison
grtz = Great Zero
islm = City
jlak = Jalak
kdsh = Kadish
krel = Kirel
kver = Kveer
Mink = Minkata
Myst = Can you guess
nb01 = Bevin
ngln = Negilahn
payi = Payiferen
psnl = Personal
rstr = Great Tree/Restoration Pub.
tetso= Tetsonot
tldn = Teledahn
tmna = Tomhana Desert

As previously stated, anything with an "x" is a global file for multiple ages.

Footstep sounds are easy to recognize as they have no prefix and are labled like "GrassRun" etc.

Finally impact sounds, like for the logs in Relto, and cones etc. All have a prefix of "p" like pConeStn_Hit01"

The prefixes also go for things like mipmaps etc. Some of them have this prefix, and the global files have the prefix of "x" these are things like linking panels, and yeesha pages. There are some though that have textures that Cyan uses however that have no such prefix.

Just a bit of a lesson for those looking.

[Zaphod]

Let me show you what I'm after. I'll pick a very small age so I don't hog the forum too much....lol

These files are part of the Nexus age:

Nexus.age
Nexus.fni
Nexus.sum
Nexus_District_BuiltIn.prp
Nexus_District_NexusAgeDialog.prp
Nexus_District_nxusBookMachine.prp
Nexus_District_Textures.prp

The sound files that are listed for that age are:

nxusBookButton_UpDown.ogg
nxusKI-SlotDevice_AwayReturn.ogg
nxusBookPutBack.ogg
nxusBookRetrieval.ogg
nxusGearAmb_loop.ogg
xKIOpenClose.ogg
xImagerNexus_Loop.ogg
xKISlotGlow.ogg

It's fairly obvious that the first 5 .ogg files are part of the Nexus age but the last 3 are not so obvious. In addition to that, ANY of these file could also be used in another age. For instance...the following file is found in the BahroCave age:

clftBookRoomMusic_Loop.ogg

You would guess that it was part of the Cleft age and you would be correct, but it is also found in the BahroCave age.

Then there are the generics such as:

xJourneyClothGlow.ogg

I have found this one in 6 different ages so far.

The problem I'm up against is that in a Complete Chronicles installation, there are 1379 .ogg files in the sfx folder. In order to figure out what age each of those 1379 files are used in is a MONSTROUS task if I have to do it file by file. There must be something out there that can simplify the task. If not, I guess I need to write something, or modify something that gets me close. In order to do that, I'll need to figure out how to decrypt the files. If no one has an idea on a tool that can do this, how about a tool that can decrypt the files?

There are some weird things with these sound files. For the most part the .ogg files have been;

1) Left in a compressed state and have no corresponding .wav file in the StreamingCache folder

2) Decompressed and a file has been placed in the StreamingCache folder with the same name as the .ogg file but with the extension changed from .ogg to .wav

3) Decompressed into two separate files. The ones that are decompressed into 2 separate files have the same name but with the .ogg extension removed and _Left.wav and _Right.wav added.

The really strange ones are the files that seem to be used in more that one way. For example:

gd01PondWind_Loop.wav
gd01PondWind_Loop_Left.wav
gd01PondWind_Loop_Right.wav

These have a corresponding .ogg file but it has been decompressed into two different formats. It must be called for in more than one age, otherwise how would the age know which format to use.

This is why I want to get into the age files. By age files, I don't mean just the *.age file, I mean all the other files that are part of the age too (.age, .fni, .sum, .prp, .csv, .p2f). I hope this helps to clarify what information I'm trying to extract from the “age” files.

[GPNMilano]

First Zaphod, again if you read my post, the majority of the ages with the prefix are found in those ages. Some are not. the example you posted of the clft file is because thats the music associated with bahro related caves. (like where you get your relto book in the cleft. since that is the first instance in game where you hear the music, thats the age it was named after).

The x marked files are simply global files that every age uses. There are cases however where they don't use them.

The reason you'll find multiple outputs of ogg files is because the ogg file is the stereo format. The sound decompresser breaks this up into two outputs, left and right, each being a mono format. Think of it like a stereo cable. There are two, one is generally white, the other red. You put in one, you only get one channel coming out of your speakers. you put in both you get both channels. This is what the sound compressor does. the ogg file is a mono file but with both channels playing simultaneously to make it seem like its stereo format. When uru runs for the very first time. (when you install it) it breaks those files up into two formatted wav files. Left and right, for sounds that need stereo format. (like wind, music, etc) this isn't needed for some sounds (like pushing of a button) because its generally only coming from the one area, not all around you.

PRPExplorer reads the PRP files. There is a program called riveal that extracts textures. But the sounds don't need to be extracted because they all ready are.

I'm curious though why you need to make a list of all the sounds for an age.

As for the rest of an age's files. The age file stores the sequence prefix of an age, its page(PRP) name's and numbers, the length of the day for that age. The fni file stores the fog settings for an age. (when you fly out of an age with flymode, you can see a solid color backdrop, thisis the fog. the settings in the fni file set how thick the fog is, what color and where it starts. The sum file is an encrypted file that stores the PRP's settings and formats. (if you change something in a prp file manually with PRPExplorer, you need to update the sum file or else the age will crash because Plasma reads this file and compares it to the actual PRP file.) Finally a csv file is for revelance regions. This is only found in certain ages, like the city and Minkata, and is used primarily for page swapping.

p2f files are simply the type of font files that Uru uses.

PlasmaShop will open up age, sum, fni, p2f, and csv files. While PRPExplorer opens up PRP files only.

I hope this helps.